DLA Piper staff have been paying an unusual amount of attention to its intranet after a staffer accidentally published a sensitive salary document.

The spreadsheet was mistakenly dropped into a shared folder accessible to all DLA staff. It stated the entire corporate team's current salaries and bonuses, fee-earner by fee-earner. It also included proposals for the amount by which each of the lawyers' pay should be raised. 

One employee who found the document and, naturally, pored through the details of his colleagues' earnings said there was a "huge difference" between senior associates' pay, "sometimes up to 25-30k". Calling it a "huge mess up", he said, "as yet it is still on there" because management "haven't realised". They did after RollOnFriday asked about it, however, and the document is now back under lock and key.

The exact moment Brian discovered that a complete punk was earning much, much more than him.

A spokeswoman for the firm said that the leaked document was a draft and was not easily accessible. But presumably it still made for fascinating reading for those who found it, and is likely to make for some awkward conversations with HR. It worked so well for the BBC.

A DLA Piper spokesperson said: "A draft document was incorrectly saved in a folder that was not publicly available but could be accessed by employees. It was not found by accident, but as a result of a specific search. As soon as we became aware the document was located and removed. It had not been widely viewed or shared. Like most firms, we have salary bands in place for our fee earners which allow for some differences as a result of an individual's level of experience and performance. The firm is a meritocracy and whilst we pay very competitively as standard, high performers are also rewarded for their achievements."